View the presentation slides  (2.1 Mb)

Abstract

This collaborative project will provide researchers and educators around the world with more ready access to New Zealand's seismographic data using the high speed KAREN network; thereby improving both teaching and research in the geosciences and across a range of disciplines.

The project will deliver data collected by the GeoNet project, an existing collaboration between the Earthquake Commission and GNS Science, to Victoria University of Wellington. One of the functions of GeoNet is to monitor earthquake activity throughout New Zealand. Currently, around 3.5 GB per day of continuous high-quality seismographic data are collected and archived. This volume will only increase as the seismic network is expanded. These data are regularly used by educators and researchers at VUW, throughout New Zealand and around the world. Current requests for seismographic data are handled by an email-based system, AutoDRM that does not integrate well into modern cyber-infrastructure, and is often criticized for being somewhat unfriendly to use.

The new Seismographic Information Service will adopt a flexible service-oriented architecture using standards-based web services to provide an alternative access mechanism to GeoNet’s continuous seismographic data archive. Within New Zealand the data will be transmitted over the KAREN network at up to 10 gigabits a second. As well as linking GNS Science and VUW, the KAREN network currently connects 16 other member institutions including all of New Zealand’s universities and Crown research institutes and the National Library. High speed links to Sydney and Seattle connect KAREN to the rest of the world.

The seismographic data web services will be integrated into the VUW Grid in order to allow processing of large volumes of continuous time-series data for research. A teaching module that can request and process these web services as part of an analysis will be also created. This should facilitate research driven learning by encouraging use of common tools for both education and research.

This one-year funded project started in June 2008. Our experience of collaboration and the outcome of the project to date will be presented. The project is funded by the Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand Ltd, REANNZ, a Crown owned company established to administer KAREN.

About the speaker

Paul Grimwood is currently a programmer at GNS Science, building software applications for data collection and management of the GeoNet project: a collaboration between the Earthquake Commission and GNS Science to build and operate a modern geological hazard monitoring system in New Zealand. He is also project manager of the REANNZ KAREN capability funded Seismographic Information Service project, creating web services to make the GeoNet seismograph archive available to researchers and educators. He was recently made project leader for the GNS Science Data and Information Systems capability project – how to make the entire organisation’s data more available and more useful. Paul also had a programming job at IT Innovation in Southampton involving software to allow a cross-collection searching of Europe’s major galleries (Louvre, Uffizi, V&A, National Gallery). Paul has a Masters in Computer Studies from Essex University, a Degree in Physiology and a PhD in Neuroscience both from the University of Leeds. Amid all this, Paul finds time to enjoy rock climbing, mountaineering, running, tramping, and photography. He and his partner are looking forward to the birth of their baby in November.